Gargantua and Pantagruel eBook

fully so great as you, except one that is their head,
named Loupgarou, who is armed from head to foot with
cyclopical anvils. Furthermore, one hundred
three score and three thousand foot, all armed with
the skins of hobgoblins, strong and valiant men; eleven
thousand four hundred men-at-arms or cuirassiers;
three thousand six hundred double cannons, and arquebusiers
without number; four score and fourteen thousand pioneers;
one hundred and fifty thousand whores, fair like goddesses—­(That
is for me, said Panurge)—­whereof some are
Amazons, some Lionnoises, others Parisiennes, Taurangelles,
Angevines, Poictevines, Normandes, and High Dutch—­there
are of them of all countries and all languages.

Yea but, said Pantagruel, is the king there?
Yes, sir, said the prisoner; he is there in person,
and we call him Anarchus, king of the Dipsodes, which
is as much to say as thirsty people, for you never
saw men more thirsty, nor more willing to drink, and
his tent is guarded by the giants. It is enough,
said Pantagruel. Come, brave boys, are you resolved
to go with me? To which Panurge answered, God
confound him that leaves you! I have already
bethought myself how I will kill them all like pigs,
and so the devil one leg of them shall escape.
But I am somewhat troubled about one thing.
And what is that? said Pantagruel. It is, said
Panurge, how I shall be able to set forward to the
justling and bragmardizing of all the whores that
be there this afternoon, in such sort that there escape
not one unbumped by me, breasted and jummed after
the ordinary fashion of man and women in the Venetian
conflict. Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Pantagruel.

And Carpalin said: The devil take these sink-holes,
if, by G—­, I do not bumbaste some one of
them. Then said Eusthenes: What! shall
not I have any, whose paces, since we came from Rouen,
were never so well winded up as that my needle could
mount to ten or eleven o’clock, till now that
I have it hard, stiff, and strong, like a hundred
devils? Truly, said Panurge, thou shalt have
of the fattest, and of those that are most plump and
in the best case.

How now! said Epistemon; everyone shall ride, and
I must lead the ass? The devil take him that
will do so. We will make use of the right of
war, Qui potest capere, capiat. No, no, said
Panurge, but tie thine ass to a crook, and ride as
the world doth. And the good Pantagruel laughed
at all this, and said unto them, You reckon without
your host. I am much afraid that, before it
be night, I shall see you in such taking that you will
have no great stomach to ride, but more like to be
rode upon with sound blows of pike and lance.
Baste, said Epistemon, enough of that! I will
not fail to bring them to you, either to roast or
boil, to fry or put in paste. They are not so
many in number as were in the army of Xerxes, for he
had thirty hundred thousand fighting-men, if you will
believe Herodotus and Trogus Pompeius, and yet Themistocles
with a few men overthrew them all. For God’s
sake, take you no care for that. Cobsminny, cobsminny,
said Panurge; my codpiece alone shall suffice to overthrow
all the men; and my St. Sweephole, that dwells within
it, shall lay all the women squat upon their backs.
Up then, my lads, said Pantagruel, and let us march
along.